WordPress Themes 101

When we hear "set up a site" most the time the very first thought that comes to our mind is the look and feel of the site. We ask how we want our content to be presented and how a user will interact with it.

This meetup will be an overview of themes and theming for WordPress. Learn what to look for in a theme, and some questions to ask your self while you search. And even how to customize a theme just right for your personal use. There are tons of WordPress themes out there, but what one is the right one for you?

We'll also take look at some popular WordPress themes (free and premium), as well as theme frameworks (for you DIYs and developers out there), to see what they have to offer.

To wrap up the night we will dive headfirst into TwentyTwelve, the new default theme for the upcoming WordPress 3.5 release, and go over creating a simple child theme.

Ever wanted to know how change the font of a site and use one those nifty google fonts? Or change up colors & sizes of different elements on the page, and just add your own personal touch? Get ready to learn! You may even come out knowing a little more about HTML, PHP, and CSS from this meetup as I go over the basics to child theming and the power of functions.php and style.css

Don't fear theacronyms. If you don't know what PHP(Hypertext Preprocessor), CSS(Cascading Style Sheets) or HTML(HyperText Markup Language) all the better reason to come to this meetup!

Thanks Barbara! Plugins definitely would be a great topic and will be looking to working in a meetup around them. Thinking almost of a "Top 10 WordPress Plugins Every WordPress Site Should Have" type thing where we would discuss some popular plugins around analytics, SEO, social & just some fun/cool ones and how to set them up. Also, will possibly try to do multiple meetups a month to cater to various audience that WordPress attracts like the themers, developers, writers, marketers, ect.

The audience came with awesome questions and really lead to some great discussions. I hope everyone enjoyed this meetup! Definitely will be taking some ideas given at the end of the meetup to shape this group and help benefit attenders of all skill sets and specialties around WordPress. For future meetups also feel free to leave suggestions in the "suggest a new meetup" section. Thanks everyone for coming out!

I'll be sure to touch on menus a bit today since they do a huge role for any website. If what I go over doesn't exactly cover what you are looking to do feel free to ask while I am talking about menus or find me after and I'll be glad to point you in the right direction.

We will touch on the topics of mobile, adaptive, and responsive design in theming, but mostly the why and show examples of some other themes, like TwentyTwelve. Will get a little into development when doing updates to TwentyTwelve, which was built with the mobile first mindset.

We're about:

Meet other local users of WordPress, the Internet's most popular blogging platform and fastest growing content management system. Gather and discuss the best ways to work WordPress, develop and design themes and plugins, tips and tricks for WordPress, and more. Group is for beginners and experts alike so come out and share your love for WordPress!

We plan on discussing a variety of topics including WordPress usage, designing WordPress Themes and styles, creating WordPress Plugins and Widgets, and using WordPress to its full potential. This is going to be a fun and informal way to meet WordPress fanatics just like yourself and share your experiences with the popular open source software.

WordPress Multisite, BuddyPress, and bbPress enthusiasts are also very welcome to attend! We plan on discussing these platforms and the features and enhancements they can provide to the WordPress platform at future meetings.

Imagine having a community behind you

I decided to start Reno Motorcycle Riders Group because I wanted to be part of a group of people who enjoyed my passion... I was excited and nervous. Our group has grown by leaps and bounds. I never thought it would be this big.